How To Organize The Biggest In-Person Event For Skilled Indian Immigrants in The US

Sara Balis Subramani is one of the biggest creators today for Indian internationals in the US. She's a 3x published author recipient of the 01A visa and her online content reaches 5 to 6 million people per month across all platforms. But now she's trying to pull off probably the hardest thing she's ever done, a firstofits-kind in-person 2-day conference only for skilled immigrants featuring some of the biggest and brightest Indian voices in America.

and brightest Indian voices in America. We initially actually were going to charge employers to join but at some point we realized we just want to help students. students. In this rather raw and candid conversation, Sandara takes us through how she almost got VP Kamla Harris as keynote speaker for the conference. Details on profit margins and pricing across the board and collaborating with some of the biggest influencers out there. Indeed, you'll see my shocked face as I was not expecting her to share as much as she did about the open Atlas summit 2025 on the 15th and 16th of August 2025. link in description below the like button if you'd like to check it out or grab tickets.

it out or grab tickets. I think the legal lounge is the highest value per dollar for anyone attending is we have about like 20 lawyers coming and offering free concert for people. There is just something so special about being part of a common collective that's all together experiencing something. But we made it a little harder by adding things like Kenny Sebastian standup a DJ dance night dating lounge founder lounge extraordinary lounge podcast booth evangelist creator lounge. In keeping with that theme of learning from high agency individuals who are just a few steps ahead, my goal with this episode is to spotlight how to plan and execute large in-person events and some common pitfalls to avoid. Why don't you take a guess of the cost of hosting this?

of hosting this? I'm going to say $200,000. I think it's going to come closer to like subscribe on YouTube and any of your favorite podcast apps for weekly episodes featuring high agency individuals and daily clips from those episodes on YouTube and Instagram. And now without any further ado, here's Sara. Sara. Welcome to the only podcast in the world featuring stories of high agency individuals who are just a few steps ahead of us. Sandia, welcome. Hey Nam. Good to be back again. So good to have you back and obviously slightly different circumstances this time. I know we're about two weeks now from the Open App Summit 2025. Something I've been looking forward to, you know, with such excitement. I can only imagine what you're feeling like having probably planned this for more than half a year

planned this for more than half a year at this point probably. Right. So yeah, really curious to kind of pick your brain around what goes into really planning and executing an event of this scale. But before we do all that, I I want to open with why like why are you doing this? Uh, you know, what what's the what's the motivating factor here for you to spend so much time, so much effort, so much money, right, into into something of such a huge scale? Oh boy. I think it began as a late night conversation. The earliest I remember thinking about hm it would be nice to do a conference or a more than just a one-hour event sometime in the future.

one-hour event sometime in the future. This was early 2024 when I was doing the book tour for an okay cuz I was I went to all these universities to speak at universities and help international students at that point. Um Nick was the one who actually told me and at that point I didn't I just I barely knew Nickin and I was just staying at his place uh and crashing there since I was in New York. Nickin said instead of you going to all of these places you can also do something in one place and bring everyone together. Yeah, Yeah, that was the first time we thought of it. Sometime December of last year, 2024 is when we decided, okay, we're doing this. And at first, this was supposed to happen. May of this year, really,

really, make 25. But I think around January or February, we decided, yeah, I don't think we can do May. It's too much, too soon. There's too much work. Um, and now that when you said it's two weeks away, I felt this goosebumps in my body that I wish it was two months away. So, I had more time to do all this stuff that's spending. spending. Um, it really was just a late night chat idea and all the projects I worked on in life have been that way where it begins with some intuition that you have and I go out there and announce it even before I know what exactly really really and but then something really magical

and but then something really magical and interesting starts happening. people start reaching out saying oh I can contribute in this way or hey I know a speaker who you can invite can I volunteer for this um I think I can help you with design people start coming to you you start attracting these people who want to be a part of this um and then it becomes something the picture is more clear in my mind that this this right now I would say is going to be the most important weekend of this year for anyone who identifies as a skilled immigrant in the US.

skilled immigrant in the US. Wow, that's that's so incredible. And I think the phrase that comes to mind is that you can almost will things into existence, right? What you said around um announcing it before you you even you have a concrete idea of what it's going to be. I just love that, you know, you you're just ready to jump off the deep end like that. And I don't think many people um look forward to doing something like that. Um so yeah, that's really fascinating. And then so obviously as you were then, you know, in the throws of planning all of this, figuring out, okay, it's a 2-day event, it'll be in person, it'll be in California. Now, obviously, you have to think about what goes on at this thing, right? Why would somebody attend? What events do we want to have? So what went

events do we want to have? So what went into planning that piece? like I guess finding speakers firstly I guess even identifying what speakers you would want. So could you walk us through that entire you know kind of where's the value identifying that I'm trying to think of what's the very very very first thing we did. Okay. Eventually that that would be ideal. Yeah. Yeah. It was venue. It was getting a venue that can accommodate a thousand people that's available for a weekend. M we could not find a venue that was in a reasonable cost cuz we found venues that were insanely expensive like $100,000 plus dollars like so we were looking for venues and then we found the India community center um which is a very beautiful space it's a community center ton of people can go

a community center ton of people can go there even during the day and spend time they were at a reasonable cost but they were only available for a few weekends in a six-month period Okay, that helps in a way because you only have certain options to choose from. It's always good to have less options and not more. Absolutely. Yep. I think once we decided that the date would be August 15, 16th. In fact, even there we began with May and then we changed to August 8th and 9th and then we changed to August 15th because 8th and 9th became unavailable.

and 9th became unavailable. Oh, I thought it was because of the independence day stuff but yeah, that's the thing is Yeah. Yeah. On the back end, people don't understand most of the things are just logistics. On the front end, you can make whatever story you want out of but and um that was the first thing. Second, we needed some keynote speakers. Mhm. Mhm. Oh my god, the amount of time we've been trying to get a keynote. Um we even looked at getting Kamla Harris and No way. No worries. It's easy to fix. Yeah, no worries. But wait really. So did your team or did you reach out to her?

team or did you reach out to her? Yeah, we did. No, not to we reached out to this agency that represents all of these big shop uh not just in politics but also in tech and carrier and so many like anyone who is a well-known immigrant in the US. I see. So we got a quote for Kamla Harris. I'm not going to reveal the quote here but I will say it was a lot. Okay. Okay. Um and then we were like okay we were tempted. We thought, "Oh, Kamla is getting a former VP that would just put us on the map." But then we decided, okay, let's look at some other options.

okay, let's look at some other options. We looked at people like Sunda Pich, Satya. Satya. Um, we looked at Injanui. I really wanted to get Inanui. Yeah. Yeah. We looked at Arvin Shinas. Oh my god. We spent months trying to get Arvin Shikas and we got really close. They were really Wow. Interesting. But in the last minute it fell through and they said not he's not available. It's just it took months to and we went through some 25 potential keynote speakers and at some point in this process of trying to get one person as a keynote speaker. We got a ton of amazing speakers in general. Right on. Right. Right.

Right on. Right. Right. This this happened pretty organically later on. In the beginning we had to reach out to people to get them on board as a speaker. Of course, we are literally starting from scratch. It's a chicken and egg problem. Exactly. Exactly. Speakers want to come to events that have audience and reputation and other good speakers, right? Exactly. Yeah. And audience come when there's good speakers. So, we um I reached out to quite a few of my network in the beginning asking if they'd speak. Many of my friends are coming to speak. But then we got a lot of requests coming in saying, "Can I be a speaker? Can I be a speaker?" Or, "Hey, I'm going to recommend this other person to be a speaker." as well. Uhhuh.

Uhhuh. Um and so that that process happened and that's where the very first mistake was made. We overallocated the number of speakers we needed. This is only a 1 and a half day event maximum or one and a one one day and a quarter day event. But we had some 50 speakers for it made no. Sorry. Can you like I guess for people like me really dumb it down. Why is that bad? That feels like not the worst thing to me. See the worst thing, but you there's only so many parallel sessions that can happen without dividing the audience so much.

without dividing the audience so much. There's not enough people in one room and we decided cap would be four. Four sessions in parallel is good because you have at least 40 to 80 people in each room. That's that's our Mhm. So, um but then we got so many speakers that we couldn't possibly fit all of them. And the thing that made me feel the worst in all of this is telling some speakers that we're so sorry we don't have a spot after saying we have a It's just a shitty thing to do. It I I would recommend anyone who's organizing an event to not overallocate speakers.

an event to not overallocate speakers. Just always um be judicious because the moment you start to promote and market your event, people will come. They will come and want to be a speaker. Y Y so you don't have to be scared in the beginning that oh I won't get enough so let me hold everyone I can. Most people took it really well. I think we we I think we did a good job of making sure we spoke to everyone and explained what happened and apologized and did whatever we could to amend the situation. mean um of course some people were not very happy but then eventually they became h it was fine overall okay now for our listeners sorry go ahead so I didn't mean to interrupt no it's just it it's not uh one of the

no it's just it it's not uh one of the biggest mistakes I think we made yeah no that's such a helpful call out I feel and you know I can already draw parallels from what I've heard other guests in honestly completely unrelated fields and domains but say similar things that yeah the you know um your body right will just be flailing all over the place to just do the most you can but it is also helpful to just you know have a little faith and be like okay there will be people just chill you know just be patient and you know not as you said overcompensate or overallocate um I meant to ask for our listeners who

um I meant to ask for our listeners who is the keynote speaker that you landed on and um what was that process like to get them finally yeah that's so I was getting to saying that instead of one keynote now we have several keynote speakers. I I see each of whom are experts in their own domain starting with Vijay Amrit who is a tennis legend from India. Um I think he was the he broke the record of being the first in many ways like the first Indian to get into a first Indian to get into the top 10 of worldwide champions first to be in a James Bond movie and film. We met him at another conference in Dubai that as I went to several notes

in Dubai that as I went to several notes ago. Happened to like jump you know happened to meet him there. We invited him and he actually said yes. Um second we have Rajes Suri who is he is the co-founder of Lyft Resto and Lima right now. Wow. So um Rajett I think let's see I emailed Rajett earlier. I also asked a friend of mine to who knew Rajat to like check with him and then Raj responded back and he was very nice. He said right. right. Um then we have uh Kika ready. Kika is someone I knew from before actually. Mhm. Mhm. I fortunately knew her through my mentor Rajesh and then awesome um requested her and this aligned with what she was perfect. So I think in the end

she was perfect. So I think in the end we realize that the experience of these conferences it's not going to be shaped by the keynote speaker the one keynote speaker it's going to be shaped by the hundred things that happened in those two days. Yeah that's so true. Yes it would have been awesome to let's say get come and do a 30 minute speech or 10 minute speech on stage and leave. But how does that change you as a person when you walk away? Yes, you listen to them talk, but you can do that on YouTube, too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so at some point, I think I just decided that I'm not going to be obsessed about this one keynote speaker.

obsessed about this one keynote speaker. Rather, I'm going to focus on every aspect of attendees experience. Um, and uh, we can get into that if you want, but there was a mind shift that happened two or three months. And yeah, I think that's just so fascinating what you said because, you know, as I kind of put myself in your shoes, yeah, I think the trade-off there from what it appears to me and obviously I have no experience with any of this is that yeah, you get a big name that really gives you a boost with marketing, everything's great. you know, you probably sell a couple hundred more tickets. But I do think what you're right about is once those 10 minutes are done, your audience probably can't help

done, your audience probably can't help but feel a little empty, right? Or they're like, "Okay, that was it. I didn't even get to ask a question, you know." And they said, "You can watch these people on YouTube as well." But I I that makes sense what you're saying that instead of one flagship really puffed up, you know, gassed up thing, you actually have a very few different but real things that are actually and I don't think the audience is going to know this. I think the audience most of them will probably come have a great time watching someone on stage and then they'll be fine. But I was thinking but don't we want people when they leave to feel like oh no this is over. Yeah. Yeah. I've met so many great people. I wish this could have kept going for the next week. Um I don't think that feeling would come from watching come on stage

would come from watching come on stage for some time. It could. I think for a really great speaker it would. But um see at some point we had to realize we don't have the kind of budget or even the courage to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a very high profile keynote speaker. Just not right now. now. Totally. Yeah. And I feel like that just makes so much sense given this is the first one that you're doing, but not necessarily the last, right? You have a lot of time and hopefully a lot of freedom to do many more of these.

freedom to do many more of these. Probably it can become an annual thing. I don't know. But yeah, I think that makes sense, right? To not bite off more than you can chew, at least on your first iteration. And even with this, the guest list is so stacked. Definitely Kenny Sebastian um peaked my interest as well. You know, I feel like that's that's huge. Jen, a lot of you speakers are just absolutely huge. And I want to kind of move past that a little bit because I feel like probably the most underrated thing from all of this from my perspective and you know I know we were discussing this offline before but I have yet I've been in the US 5 years now and I have yet to find any career fair that specifically exists for um international students or im skilled

international students or im skilled immigrants as you were saying. So I do want to touch on that briefly. That feels like honestly a bigger or a harder problem to tackle than getting keynote speakers if I'm being very honest with you. Yes. Given the state of the market and how stuff is in America as of recording this in late July 2025. So yeah, what can you share about that piece? piece? I think about 10 times in the last few months we had the thought and discussion should we do the job fair or should we just remove it? Really why is that? was because it was so bloody hard to get employers. I mean when people see from outside, oh okay, 30 employees are coming. Great.

30 employees are coming. Great. It took insane level of convincing and explaining to each of these employers to get them to say yes. Not just that, there are several steps. First, they accept your request. Then they hear you out. And then they say, "Okay, I'm interested." interested." Okay? And then you have to send them the agreement and make sure they sign it and finally show up on the actual day. At every step of the process there's churn that's happening and and at some point I mean we initially actually were going to charge employers to join. Got it. But at some point we realized um yeah honestly we just want to help students.

honestly we just want to help students. So let's not even charge employers. Let's just get employers on board who are hiring. Um, and we are charging students and it's I think it's a very intentional decision because people just don't take free things seriously these days. days. Yeah, I agree 100%. You know, for anyone who's reached out to us saying, "Hey, I can't even afford the $39 to pay." We'll be like, "Okay, fine. Here's a free pass. Take it." Um, at least we know they they have the motivation and intention to do it. Otherwise, um, yeah, yeah, I I decided a long time ago that I've seen this time and again. Last year for the book tour, we worked our asses off to get people into the rooms. Mhm. Mhm. And you won't believe there were universities where like 600 people would register and 80 people showed up and it

register and 80 people showed up and it was just so insane to me that Yeah. Yeah. that could have been the turning point of that student's life, international students life and they chose to spend that time chilling with friend or you know going out for a movie. It just it didn't make sense to me. We put so much effort and we didn't charge anyone for the book tour any of the students. Mhm. Mhm. In hindsight I should have charged $10 for everyone. They would have showed up and it would have been good for them to do that. Yeah. And I think we see this time and again, right? Even with anything that's online, any digital product, like paid courses have statistically way higher

courses have statistically way higher completion rates than free one, right? And there's a reason for that. And again, this is not even something that's disputed at this point. But yeah, I think I really like what you said about people that were still serious that wanted to attend, but for whatever reason couldn't spare that amount. You were gracious enough to be like, "Yeah, sure." That clearly, you know, this has value. And I think that's what it boils down to, right? Is the value proposition. And again, you don't want to fill in those rooms with people that aren't interested, people that are kind of just there to to exist cuz that again negates the experience of the others that are actually there for productive reasons or or whatever the case might be. So, but I can see how that would be

be. So, but I can see how that would be a really difficult decision to go about that. And I guess speaking of decisions and people that take them, what sort of team should one look to assemble when trying to pull something like this off like I guess maybe we don't need to get into numbers or anything but if you can share what personas that you need specifically like do you have an operations head maybe a logistics headuler headuler anything you can share about the team prospect of that? Um we have more than 35 people working right now on this happy hour. It's insane. It's like a small company that's happening that's working behind the scenes.

working behind the scenes. Um I I think early on besides the co-founders and uh Narin began helping early on early on. Naran is someone who volunteered for the book launch two years ago and he worked with me on a book tour last year. So, okay. I knew him very well and he was like an obvious part of the team from the beginning. Um, and outside of that, it happened each of it happened slowly. We put out a call in our newsletter to hire someone who can help us raise sponsorships.

help us raise sponsorships. uh someone came through that and then one of our unshackled community members had volunteered to host an event for us and she was just so great that we thought okay why don't you come work with us on the conference going to be even much much bigger so one person came through that uh I would say some of the existing volunteers and team got their friends to join in and uh it was very organic like I think I only put out one or two calls from my side saying we need some but once you have a few people they'll start bringing in their friends and the word spreads people will come to you. So eventually in the last few months we got requests from

got requests from 50 plus people asking they'd like to volunteer but we spent so much time creating this matrix the volunteer matrix. matrix. I can uh let me try to show this to you. Yeah Yeah I can share my screen. You can yeah that would be amazing actually. This is something I'm very proud of. I'm a notion nut. Love it. I use notion for everything. And this gives you like an idea of Are you sharing? Sorry, I don't see it.

Are you sharing? Sorry, I don't see it. No, no, I'm going to share it. Oh, okay. Okay. Just making sure, but sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. This gives you a sense of the amount of thought that went into the kind of volunteer leads. We have a job fair lead. Could Sorry. Could you x out that Riverside uh widget there on the Yep. Exactly. Yep. Sorry, please continue. Yep. Yep. So, we have a job fair lead, a stage lead to create a slides, catering lead, venue setup and tear down lead, a volunteer lead, logistics lead, speaker lead, podcast booth lead. Yeah, we have a podcast booth as well, lead, attendee experience lead. And I told them, them, what does that mean? Like, some of these are just so fascinating to me. Like, what does that even entail? I told them your only job is to make sure every

your only job is to make sure every attendee has a good experience. So come to me as many ideas as you can to make sure of that. That's so cool. I love that we have so many lounges happening. By the way, there's a founder lounge host, extraordinary lounge for extraordinary recipients, dating lounge, book signing lead, an evangelist lead, which we'll talk about, registration, welcome, social media. You see the amount of leads we have. It's like some 25 30 volunteers are helping us out to do all of this. That's incredible. Yeah, it it's a huge machine that's running and uh it's fun for me because I think I'm very good at putting these pieces together. Although every time I start the project like this that's very busy and reactive,

and reactive, part of me thinks why did I do this to myself because I could just be in a farm writing a book. Love I just love how your alternate to this is probably doing something just as hard if not harder which is to write a book. Yeah. Well, that's it's hard but I think that um is very soul nourishing for me at least. But um the evangelist that is something I would say was a great decision. Okay. And actually before you share about it what exactly is that just so that there's no confus confus so much internally now. So we realized this is a rare opportunity to not just get immigrants to come in but also immigrant creators. So we began to look for every single Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube creator, influencer out there who are immigrants themselves. They

who are immigrants themselves. They don't have to talk about immigration just that they are outside the country. They came from outside. So we start to probably 150 to 200 people. Wow. I don't even know the count. Um them organically like just through searching and such just yeah really helped um using search of like hey look for people similar to UDJ or part or Roshni was helpful yeah made sense and we reached out to all of them and in fact I would say 1/4 of them responded and they were able to make it so we have more than 50 creators coming to this and I think this is going to be the largest concentration of creators in one room at that's a fact For sure. Yeah. I mean, I

that's a fact For sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't even think that's disputable at this point. It has to be. Yeah. This has never just happened before. In one of my biggest reasons for attending was to meet some of these people that I've met and interacted with. Sorry, not met but that I have just interacted with, but I'll be meeting for the first time. So, I think you're 100% right.

I think you're 100% right. Yeah. And so I mean to be very honest I was telling this to Nikki and one day that we could have made ourselves our lives a lot easier if we had just hosted two days conference sessions workshops panels you could come speak go that but we made it a little harder by adding things like Kenny Sebastian standup a DJ night dling lounge founder lounge extraordinary lounge podcast booth um evangelist creator lounge and all of these other things legal launch even I think the legal lounge is the highest value per dollar for anyone attending is we have about like 20 lawyers coming and offering free consults for people um and it's a win-win right they potentially get clients that's why they're doing it it's very clear and people who are

it's very clear and people who are attending want to get lawyers help and we are like the middle person connecting these two and so um yeah as I'm talking about this with you I'm realizing realizing just how much effort went into this the last 6 months and it really just pisses me off when people don't understand that and uh but of course this is like 1% of the population that don't understand right who are who ask you things like why are you charging this much money you should be charging only this much and on that note as well n we were like fine we'll cut the price to so So that you just help us cover the cost of the venue and food. Yeah. Yeah. And come and we just need you to come

And come and we just need you to come because this is going to be a once in a lifetime or once in a year event at least for now. Uh 100%. Yeah. So we also cut the price today to $199 for the entire conference and only $99 if you just want to come for the second. So So Got it. And again, I just truly don't think it is possible to be more understanding, flexible. I don't know what's the right word here, but it it truly feels like yeah, I mean I can tell again granted for our listeners I am involved cuz I will be moderating a couple panels but it's not that degree of involvement for me to you know just randomly say things but so I guess yeah I really mean that when I say that yeah

I really mean that when I say that yeah again truly this is if I were a student when this is happening I would just be so so grateful to attend just because of Yeah, exactly as you were saying the overall value proposition and the fact that there's there's nothing like this. Um, going back to the what you were saying about the influences, I do also want to I guess just uh you know just personal curiosity reasons. Um, what is it like to reach out to people that have huge following and I know this is a kind of an interesting question to ask you because you have a huge following also but I am curious how those interactions go. Is it kind of like humble brag types

go. Is it kind of like humble brag types when which they are doing obviously not you cuz I I know you well enough now that to know that you don't do that but yeah what can you share about um volunteer interaction? Oh, see it's all different. I'll be honest. Some influencers, some influencers are so nice that they would try to support however they can.

would try to support however they can. And uh one of them even spoke to me a few days ago asking me all these questions about the event. I was confused at first. Why are you asking all this? And then you know they told me no because I want to promote this and I want to promote it the right way. So was want to make sure I get all the information right and I thought that was very sweet. That's so sweet. Yeah, there are people who um actually this is not their fault. I think we should have been clear. I think there are people who wanted to attend but expected that we would also pay for travel and a congregation. Ah but we were like hey you know we can

but we were like hey you know we can only pay for so many people and we're also we're already paying for speakers and you're obviously paying for a speaker. speaker. Yeah. and subsidizing tickets as well now, right? Like you're just going way above and beyond already. Yeah. I mean, in the end, like um trying to lose money on this cuz that would be insane. I think you're making money.

insane. I think you're making money. I'll be I'm going to do a full breakdown of the profit, revenue, everything cost afterward. afterward. Okay. Yeah. Um because I also want to bust some myth that people may have thinking, "Oh, we're just making like half a million dollars from this," which is so stupid and ridiculous. Uh but I don't blame them because they have no idea what happened. So I mean there are a lot of variables there for sure and obviously yeah I can cut this part out but if you could if we could do that breakdown on the show that would be great but also yeah no pressure at all.

great but also yeah no pressure at all. I I'll tell you this though because I don't know the final sales yet, right? Most of the sales comes in the last few weeks. We're expecting a lot more money to come in. Um I can tell you that um why don't you take a guess of the cost of hosting. Oh boy. Um I'm going to say $200,000.

Oh boy. Um I'm going to say $200,000. I think it's it's less than that. And that's because the venue was cheaper than we bought it. So I think it's better to come closer to like 120 130k about about that I wasn't off by that much but but that still a ridiculous amount of money first of all like can we can we just call that out for what it is? It's like a year salary but yeah that's ridiculous. Wow. Um wow in terms of actual like revenue that's going to come in. We don't know yet. I want to make at least some profit. But I'm just going to, you know, as I said, transparently say if you guys are thinking we're making hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit, that is just not true. I think it can be true

just not true. I think it can be true probably in the future. I can see a way in which this could generate that kind of profit. Yeah. totally. Look, the money has to come in one of two ways. Either ticket prices or sponsorships. sponsorships. Yep. We did actually manage to get some killer sponsorships thanks to Nickin who was leading that. We actually have anyone you can think of in the modern legal tech space. Deal, Boundless, Fakuri, Immigration, Manifest Law, Lighthouse, um, Alma, everyone is sponsored. sponsored. I know you even have Dilm. That's crazy.

I know you even have Dilm. That's crazy. That was uh, you know how I got in touch with Dill? I met the CEO at an event that I went to. I randomly just see him and I meet him and I ask him, "Hey, by the way, we're thinking of hosting just a casual dating lounge. Are you interested to partner?" And he said, "Yeah, why not?"

partner?" And he said, "Yeah, why not?" So that's how we got in touch with them. I also think one of the misconceptions about the dating lounge when I announced it is people were thinking oh this is some sort of matrimony shadi where we connect people with EV1 visas and it just shows me the attention span of human beings is just so sadly sadly low it's just a dating it's paid dating you show up to a room you meet people of the other gender or whatever you're you're into yourself as and then talk to them them that's all that's happeningly We're not going to set people up on marriages in that. that. And I know this started as an um April Fool's prank, right? If I'm not wrong. And And and I think that's where all of the

and I think that's where all of the rumors started. I think I Well, it's just kind of our fault, right? Like we went out there and made this prank that reached two million people, probably four. Um so obviously when we said dating launch, people connected both and that's what it is. Exly. I know you put out a post clearly clarifying that this was a joke, blah blah, but I'm guessing that probably did not reach 2 million people.

not reach 2 million people. Probably not. No, I think of the 2 million people, most people knew it was a joke because the moment you go to the website, it says Yeah, I went there. I remember. Yeah, 100%. It was fairly obvious if you have. Some people were so sad back then that it was a joke that they wanted it to be real. real. Some people wanted to invest in the idea. They reached out saying, "If you're seriously considering, I'd love to invest." that is pretty scary.

to invest." that is pretty scary. I just want to write books and live my life and all of this. I just keep doing making my life harder for no reason. I think think I I do think though that I mean I I don't mean to speak for you, but I just feel like if I were in any way involved with any of this, I would just feel so fulfilled at the end. Um just having, you know, impacted just so many lives. I I don't know. There's just something really special about doing hard things, especially when you're not expected to do them or you don't have to do them,

do them or you don't have to do them, but you do them anyway. And I just feel like that that feeling of fulfillment is practically irreplaceable. And I think you understand that on some level, but again, I don't mean speak for you. There's something special about doing hard things, especially when it's not expected of you. Yeah. Yeah. That's so well put. Um I I felt that feeling and I'm sure you have too a few times in my life where I think uh all of my book line like first book and second book once I finished both of them also when I finished my third book uh second draft thousand days of love I felt this like sense of I never

I felt this like sense of I never thought I could do fiction but I did it. Um and also book launch unttrack book launch event two years ago that um the next day I remember I opened my phone and there was 100 messages from people it was awesome but also I felt very hollow because that had been the goal for so long and it was done now that's just your dopamine pool get going way high and not knowing where to go up next from that point so no yeah but yeah but then again it's just yeah this is I, you know, processes over goals, right? But yeah, not to detract.

goals, right? But yeah, not to detract. Um, final question here before I let you go. Um, speed pitch for anybody that's kind of on the fence, is kind of not sure whether or not they should go to this. What would you say to these people? people? Um, I'd say that the cost of attending the conference now is $100. That's something that you'd probably spend on a gym membership in a month. probably spend in four meals, two times eating out at this point in 2025, right? Yeah, exactly. Instead, I think if you come to the event, you will get to get free consoles with 20 lawyers that probably would cost you thousands of dollars. Mhm. You would meet hundreds of people like 700 plus people who would be, you know, lifelong friends and mentors and co-founders and who

and mentors and co-founders and who whatever else. Um, and I also think conferences are more than anything else a chance for you to pause in your life because that's what you're really doing is for one and a half days you're deciding in your life that I'm going to prioritize this part of my life over everything else because otherwise your life is the same series of mundane events. Yeah. Wake up, job, gym, sleep, eat, stuff like that. But for one and a half days, you get to pause and walk into this world where everyone's thinking of the future. They're thinking of building something. They're thinking of getting talent visas or how to grow on social media. I think it's a gift to yourself is how I would think about it.

is how I would think about it. Absolutely. I think that's so well put. And the only thing I would add to that and maybe you can like disagree I guess but something that motivated me a lot when I decided to go here before I was even moderating anything was just that um there is just something so special about being part of a common collective that's all together experiencing something like we used to have this back in the day with TV dramas and then they put everything bingeable and made everything bingeable and so that stopped. Yes. But I I feel like in real life in at least 2025 there are very few opportunities to experience something

opportunities to experience something with a huge group of people together and there's just something so nourishing about that like socially like and I think that's incredible and that's something that was for me at least a big factor in in wanting to go. Wow, that is so beautiful that I'm thinking we should say that in our emails. emails. Yes, exactly. It's a it's an experience. It's It's and you're all in the same boat, right?

and you're all in the same boat, right? You you all know what it's like. You face the same troubles. It's just there's just something. So, there's a term for this which I'm now obviously blanking on. Um binding through adversity. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's like bonding through suffering. Exactly. There you go. Yep. That that's the one. Um which is kind of dark, but but I think my point still stands.

my point still stands. I mean Yeah. But I also think suffering is you can look at it two ways. I was talking to Vijay Amrit today on a call and he was telling me that when he was young he was sick so much. Mhm. Mhm. That he could barely read and do well inside a school and he would just keep failing his classes. So the doctor's recommendation was to go out and play some sport and that's how he picked up tennis. He just kept playing and playing and playing and eventually became this world champion. champion. Wow. And I was hearing and thinking, hm, here's a guy who could have like when the doctor said, okay, your body is weak, could have just decided to take up the most easy carrier out there. Yeah. Yeah. And just coast through life. Yep.

Yep. But he didn't let that stop him. Rather, he let that almost become the fuel to fire that happened in his life. I think that's what immigration should be thought of as is. Yeah, it sucks. Lottery sucks. green card backlog suck, but stop complaining. Do something about it and stop going on Reddit and posting about how much backlog is getting longer. Actually do some damn thing to change it. Um so I think um that's the feeling I want people to walk away with is stop complaining. Start doing something.

complaining. Start doing something. Love that. Couldn't have put it any better. Big proponent of never ever doomsday, right? It never helps has never helped anybody in history ever. and that's not going to change. But yeah, thanks so much for here for taking the time. I'm really excited to see you in person shortly here. I know I'll be making like a on the ground uh vlog across the two days which I'm really excited to you know also experience.

excited to you know also experience. Definitely going to um interview some people in the dating lounge just kind of candidly and ask them how they're doing. I I can already tell that would be such a blast to to pull off. So but yeah, thank you so so much for taking the time. I really learned so much and I really appreciate your time. Thank you. See you soon. That brings us to the end of that episode with Sara Balis Subramani. First of all, check out the link. I if you're probably watching this before 15th August 2025 still, make sure you grab tickets. It you have to be there. If you are an Indian international in the US, there's just no reason for you to not

there's just no reason for you to not attend. If you would like to support me, the easiest way to do that is by subscribing on YouTube and leaving me up to a fivestar rating on Spotify or any of your favorite podcast apps. Something that goes a really long way for me is if you share by word or mouth or just by links, you know, however you want with your friends and family about your new favorite podcast. Catch you all in the next one. New episodes every Wednesday.

next one. New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe right now. Thanks.